Several years ago at a conference, I was inspired by a Statue of Liberty Unit that another art teacher had done with her middle school students. I had a copy of her visual packet (it did not copy well so I ended up borrowing images and using books to show most of the visuals) but little else for the unit. The theme of our summer school this year is 'History of America' so the Statue of Liberty was a perfect topic. A couple of years ago, we had the same theme and I focused on Abraham Lincoln, this year I wanted to pull out that packet and my notes from the conference and develop it into something really great.

Day 1 The first day I introduced the project, I told the story of Professor Laboulaye and Bartholdi and the French gift with great symbolism. I told my students how sad it was that Bartholdi is not a household name like Van Gogh and DaVinci, considering he designed one of the most famous statues in the world. We read through the Discover Kids Magazine: Statue of Liberty as a class, and talked about some of the really important photos and key terms about how the Statue was built. Coincidentally, June 17th marks the 130th anniversary of the Statue entering the New York Harbor---it was fun to talk about that date with my classes that week. After reading through the magazine for about 30 minutes, we took a Kahoot quiz over the information using my iPad minis---this helped students retain the information also gave me a chance to go over the rules about using iPads in my art room. Here is a link to the Kahoot Quiz.

Day 2 Today we started sketching ideas for a Statue of Liberty inspired painting. Students could honor the symbolism of the original artist, or they could inspiration from examples by Peter Max---American pop artist, who paints the Statue of Liberty every 4th of July OR Romearo Britto---and his red-white-blue painting of the lady liberty entitled 'Freedom'. I encouraged students to draw 3-4 versions on a piece of 9X12 paper, we folded it into 4 squares so they would have lots of practice spots. Once they had settled on an idea, they needed to transfer it to 12X18 colored construction paper. This was a great way to use up those faded, old pieces of construction paper. I encouraged them to draw BIG and LIGHTLY and make sure to add a background. Once their drawing was sketched on the big paper, they were ready to paint. Not everyone was ready on day 2, so I encouraged early finishers to use modeling clay to make their own Statue of Liberty for fun! Some students wanted to focus on the torch, instead of drawing the face----I let them do that in this project, but if you were focusing on the portrait you might want to be specific about your expectations.

Day 3 For the first day of painting, I encouraged students to paint the background first. I always do this with bigger paintings, because they tend to jump right to the main subject and neglect the background....but by painting the background first, they are forced to plan it out in advance, and it helps them to finish everything on time! One big thing----if they decided to paint fireworks or lots of small stars or something like that, they need to either choose a background color that works (like purple or black), or they need to paint the entire background before starting on the tiny sparks of the fireworks. Several students ran out of time because they started with the fireworks and then tried to paint around each little 'dash'. Once the background base layer is painted, they can mix up a special 'green', or paint the 'skin' of the statue however they want. I encouraged them to save outlining and small details like the eyes, nose, and mouth for the next day so that the base layer could dry properly.

Day 4 Final details! Today was our last day for painting so I brought out the silver, gold, and copper metallic paint so students could give their painting a little sparkle! This was a great chance to jazz up the background with fireworks---I showed an example of how to paint them with a thin brush using lots of dashes and small lines. I also think these paintings look great when they are outlined in black paint---so I encouraged them to either use a small brush with black paint, or at least go back and draw the details on in black sharpie if they painted right over the eyes and nose last time.

NOTE: One girl who is a GIFTED artist, was struggling with this project. I know that she is really good at animals so I said, 'You could just use the statue's pose as inspiration....and make an animal' instead!' She came up with the OH-SO-CUTE cat below! She spent so long drawing it that she ran out of time for painting---she colored hers with construction paper crayons instead. I LOVE IT!

If you are considering this unit, check out my PinBoard with lots of visuals and ideas!

Yes, I do hang up a few 'line' drawings of coloring sheets and even a few step-by-step drawing tools---especially on a project we only have a few days to work on, it helps them stay on track and get done on time so that they aren't spending a lot of class time 'figuring out' what to draw....I also have lots of books, visuals and examples by artists for inspiration.